The Detective
by fragum nitri
Summary: Mai didn't pine away forever for Naru. In fact, she didn't wait for him to come back. Mai became a police detective with a talent for forensics. What happens when she discovers that Naru did come back to Japan and her family has been looking for her?
1. Chapter 1

This is a story that was essentially written because it was bouncing around in my head one night when I couldn't sleep. This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in a very long time ( almost 5 years), so I hope it is enjoyable, despite being only a short introduction. Please enjoy and review! Constructive criticism accepted.

Btw, It should be said that I, for all intents and purposes do not own, nor lay claim to, any of the characters used in this story or the story of Ghost Hunt itself. I merely write this as an idea I had.

Chapter 1: The Corpse

"...isn't my brother that you are in love with?"

Naru's face suddenly smiled as his brother Gene's had in Mai's dreams. His figure then began to rot rapidly, his skin disappearing in a gruesome spectacle as his body was quickly divested of skin and tissue to become a still grinning skeleton. The skeleton reached towards the girl and leant down as if to give her a kiss...

"Ahhh!" yelped the girl as she jolted awake from her nightmare. Breathing heavily she wiped the sweat from her face as she reached for the light on her bedside table.

Mai Tanimaya was not by any means a regular girl. For certain, regular girls would not be relieved at waking up from nightmares, rather than the memories of the dead. Regular girls would be far more interested in their love lives and boys, instead of where their next meal was coming from. Mai, was not those girls.

Mai had discovered her psychic abilities as a teenager, while working part-time at a psychic research firm in Shibuya. That was of course linked to the fact that at the time she had been deeply in love with her egocentric and narcissistic boss, whom she quickly dubbed 'Naru'. Over the time she worked there she was exposed to constant danger on both supernatural and physical planes of existence, only to be saved by her 'too-attractive-for-his-own-good' boss. It was only natural for her to develop feelings for the man, and consequently dream of him. However she hadn't known of his own powers or that of his dead brother, whom had used her dreams as a vehicle for watching over and protecting his living twin. It was for this reason that Mai had stuck with the job. Additionally the pay was fantastic and she fell in love with her fellow workers, often imaging them as a new sort of family for her self, still recovering from the emotional losses of her father and mother.

However when Naru left to bury his twin in England her world had received a not entirely unnecessary shock. While still interested in helping the dead, she found herself unwilling to work with different teams, often for a great deal less pay and a great deal more creeps who often were trying to use her and her abilities. It finally came to a head after she was sexually harassed by a member of her new team, only for it to be dismissed by her rather unprofessional team director. Unwilling to work on more cases, she finally stopped and began looking for another line of work.

It wasn't long until she found one. Science was always a passion for Mai. She was in no way a genius, but she worked hard and soon found herself in the police forensics team. A mere three years later and she was widely considered to be at the top of her field as well as a capable investigator, earning her the title of 'detective'. It had been a year since then and Mai was surprised that she had dreamt about Naru.

She had of course been on several dates since high school and was at the age of 26, considered quite beautiful by her peers. However she was incredibly selective about those whom she shared a relationship with, and so far those had been few and far between. With a first love like Naru, it was extremely difficult to turn Mai's head. Mai thought about her dream. For once it wasn't a connected to the case she was working on: a young girl whom appeared to have been strangled by her father. Could her abilities be growing? She wondered if she should contact one of the previous SPR workers and ask them what they thought. She quickly nixed the idea. contacting her old friends from SPR, while tempting, was probably better left undone.

Unfortunately, Mai's new 'family' quickly broke apart once Naru, and the lure of more cases, left. Mai regretted that as much as Naru's departure as it was doubly hurtful for her as she again felt abandoned. Promises to meet became less rarely kept as the members of SPR became absorbed in their post-Naru lives. Hah, she mused. It was like the wake of a disaster. Everything suddenly became pre-, during, or post-Naru to her way of thinking. While she loved the gang she had no contact with them following Naru's departure. They understood that initially, it was too painful. However as they waited to contact her Mai began her troubled history of assisting psychic research teams in Japan. Once they tried to contact her, not only was Mai was too busy pursuing forensic science and studying at university, she had moved due to problems with her apartment being to far from the university to university accommodation.

Mai thought again about her dream. Since they had discovered his body Gene had never visited her again, there seemed no need. After absorbing Gene's basic lessons Mai had been able to train her powers quite well on her own. Naru also had never contacted her, although she had half hoped he would come back and restart SPR again. Could that be it? Was Naru coming back to Japan? Or was this just a nightmare caused by thoughts of her teenage life yesterday? Quickly she looked up Naru's profile online. It wasn't hard, after all, as the British psychic research institute was fairly well publicised. But no there seemed no mention of Professor Davis visiting Japan, indeed he was even registered as a teacher for a series of advanced seminars in the coming months. No, she decided. It must be just a nightmare brought on by thinking about the past Mai told herself. She checked the clock and discovered it was still only 2 am and so decided to go back to sleep until she needed to wake in in order go to work in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to all those whom reviewed! Special thanks goes out to tullem and AwakenAndAlive whom reviewed on the very first day that this story came out :)

Again I should like to note that

Chapter 2: The Missing Girl

_Professor_ Oliver Davis, thank you very much, was very, very annoyed. Why was he annoyed you ask? Because six months had gone by and yet he was still looking for his idiotic, clumsy assistant! Upon arriving in Japan again a year after his departure, Oliver had sought out his team from SPR immediately. And, in drips and drags, they came back.

Masako had of course, come back immediately. It was very clear that the girl was hoping for a renewed chance at winning his affections now that Mai had been rather obviously been turned down. Oliver took a peculiar type of pleasure in dismissing that hope. She had after all, used her knowledge of his true identity to blackmail him. While he was appreciative of the creative use of cunning to achieve one's own ends, his appreciation to a rather downward turn when the skill was used upon him. The only one he could stand to be manipulated by was his former assistant, whom obviously did not have it in her to manipulate someone for a negative purpose.

The second to return was, most peculiarly, Ayako. Ayako was very privately considered by Oliver to be a hugely important acquisition for his team. While her skills as a miko were often not of any real use, she was rather good at charms and it with the cases Oliver tended to take it was imperiative to have a fully trained doctor, albeit a bossy, hospital princess, on call. Next to come back were John and Yasuhara. John, despite choosing to leave the priesthood, was still a fully trained exorcist and Yasuhara, despite his eccentricities, was one of the best researchers Oliver had ever met. It was through Yasuhara that SPR's resident buddhist monk had been persuaded to return.

Takigawa, or "Monk" as Mai had referred to him had come back reluctantly. Oliver knowing that the man was also a struggling musician had come back to find that Takigawa had opted to continue his training as a monk in a nearby temple. Upon discussing with the monk he found that he had decided to do so a few months after he left, in order to try and take adopt Mai. All was going well until Takigawa's plans had hit a small snag.

Mai was missing.

Her apartment manager had no idea where she had gone, only that she had chosen not to renew the lease on her small, but well kept apartment. Nor did her school know. After she had graduated, Mai had seemingly taken off. It was seemingly impossible to find her. Nor did any of SPR's other former staff seem to know where she was. Masako said only that she had caled her once and Ayako said they had met up for a cup of tea at a shop nearby shortly before she had graduated. Oliver was in a quandry to explain the whereabouts of his former assistant. However Takigawa came back, as with Oliver there, though he still called him "Naru", he seemed to think that there was a chance Mai would find them on her own.

It had been more than a year since then and Oliver was perturbed that Mai had not contacted him. At all. Surely he meant more to her than this? The girl HAD "confessed" to him hadn't she? Never mind that she had obviously confused him with his brother, he thought with a small stab of pain. It was irrelevant in the schema of things. He would have still expected her to have called to say hello. He would have invited her to have a cup of tea at a nearby cafe and he would have persuaded her to come back to her old job. None of that had occurred. And it was killing him.

Three months after Takigawa returned he began to actively look for her. He didn't tell Lin or the others at SPR but he began spreading subtle feelers out, began looking for clues. He had questioned her friends from high school, whom not only disliked him but were actively hostile. He was used to it. After all so were the others. Even Lin seemed hostile to him these days. After finding out the full story from Takigawa and Ayako, many of his workers disliked him and often seemed insubordinate. If he was the head, Mai was the heart of the SPR team, and without her it was dying.

However Mai remained missing.

It had been over a year and Oliver was tasked with a job which he hated doing: hiring a new assistant. He was after all extremely resistant to the idea, but finally he convinced himself that it was necessary to have someone else take over the paperwork in order to have more time to search for Mai. So he went about the process of interviewing applicants.

Most of his applicants he refused within minutes of the interview. He was not interested in becoming their boyfriend, or _boytoy_ in one case of an obviously frustrated older woman. He looked for males to fill the position, but was unfortunately met by the same issue or by disinterest once they realised his personality type. He was on his last interview now, a young woman who was looking for part-time employment.

"come in" he ordered. The girl entered the room, a determined smile on her face. Interestingly the smile seemed to drop a bit as she saw him, then a moment later was present again, even more determination filling her eyes.

Interesting.

He invited her to sit and she did so nervously, though seemingly determined to hide that fact. He looked at her. The girl was rather pretty with a a determined chin and dark eyes, however the effect was somewhat spoiled by her bright purple hair. "good afternoon, miss?" he greeted.

"Toshida" she quickly filled in for him. "good afternoon to you as well".

"we shall see" he replied not yet convinced.

After going through some basic questions about her capabilities, he asked her one last question;

"why is it that you applied for this job miss Toshida?" she looked at him as if she was surprised. "honestly? Because it seems a little bit crazy" she said and immediately looked ashamed of her bad manners. He cocked an eyebrow and she explained further. "I did a little bit of research on you prior to the interview and honestly I would like to write a paper on you all for my thesis" that's right she was doing, he cast a glance back to her resume, an honours thesis in psychology? Even more interesting. A psychologist could be useful to the team and useful in the field, however...

"not that I would do so if you have anything against me doing so of course" ah, that was it. Oliver smiled. "Miss Toshida, thank you for coming in today. When can you start?"

Toshida has been hired! Bwahaha! For those of you who are wondering, Miss Toshida has absolutely nothing to do with myself whatsoever. This is not, by any means, a self insertion. I swear it is not. But miss Toshida is central to the plot of this story I'm afraid. Btw, I do realise that I'm being unclear about the time lapses in this story, however I believe that it would take a reasonable length of time to reassemble the old SPR team. I know that most stories have Naru come back around a month following, however I am of the opinion that it would take a great deal of time before his parents and the British SPR would have let him return to Japan. Also in regards to his use of the name "Oliver", as opposed to "Naru" I believe him to identify with that name a great deal more and the chapter is from his perspective.


	3. Chapter 3

Ok so I know I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy! Halfway through my honours year and the work load is killing me. Seriously. Could die. Have not slept. Like. At all. But now I'm taking a break and procrastinating by writing this. Yay for story! Thank you everyone who reviewed!(Really, cannot stress this enough) I keep all of your reviews very close to my heart and they keep me going, despite my infrequent posts. Just so you know, Mai will not be in every chapter. Just the way that I imagined this story playing out. But don't worry, you will be seeing/ hearing of her very often.

With out further ado, the disclaimer!

I do not own, nor am I making profits from this story or these characters. They belong solely to their original creator.

**Chapter the Third: How to lose a guy in...**

Mai Taniyama was silent as she digested the events of the last 5 minutes. Yusuke Minamoto just asked her to be his girlfriend. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened actually.

Yusuke Minamoto was a detective in Tokyo's Shibuya district. He was also tall, intelligent and, privately, very handsome. He was also quite good at his job, having a burning passion for bringing criminals to justice, having the highest arrest rate in the force and catching several very big criminals per year. This of course led to quite a number of crushes amongst the female members of the Tokyo police force. Mai was one of them, admiring Yusuke's passion for catching murderers and rapists and bringing them to justice. His rather handsome features did not help either. But she had never said anything, despite their working together quite often she was content to let their relationship as friends continue. However that had changed when Yusuke asked to talk to her privately a moment ago.

"Taniyama-san"

"Yes?" she had thought his address was a little odd, after all they had been out to lunch and had gotten dinner together a number of times. She had asked him to call her by her first name a while ago and he had happily agreed, so why...?

"can I -can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked her. Shaking off her puzzlement she happily agreed and followed him into the back room. "are you seeing anyone at the moment, Tanimaya-san?"

What? That had really nothing to do with the case at all, but perhaps he wanted her help with something different, relationship troubles with a girlfriend? She assumed he had one "No Minamoto-kun, i'm afaid that I am not" she replied after a moment, a little sad she could not help the man. He looked like he was wrestling with something awful.

"Tanimaya-no, Mai-chan" Minamoto started. Mai was confused, Minamoto was looking at her now in a way that she had never seen before.

"Minamot-"

"I love you" he interrupted, looking at her, still with that same look in his eyes.

What?! Minamoto loved her? LOVED HER?! Minamoto was gorgeous, smart and popular. A true catch. Why on earth would he want her?

Mai was not unaware that she was reasonably pretty, she had a good personality and was considered cute by many on the force. However her success at such a young age, her sometimes acerbic personality and lack of a social life had rendered her an almost complete lack of a love life. So she almost wanted Minamoto to repeat that last sentence.

Some of her shock must have communicated itself to him, either through her sudden rigidity or through her widened eyes as Minamoto took a breath and once more addressed her. "Mai, I'm in love with you. You don't have to feel the same way, but -"

"Ok"

"...what?"

"Yes, I'll go out with you" Mai had decided.

Yusuke looked ecstatic. "really? That's brilliant! So I was wondering if you wanted to go and see that new movie down at the pier..."

Mai was still in shock. A date? A D. A. T. E. date? How on earth was she supposed to pull this off?!

Detective (thank you very much) Yusuke Minamoto was proud of his job. At 25 years of age he knew he had found his calling. He was ruthless when it came to hunting down criminals and was dedicated to the protection of those he loved. He stretched feeling his bones click into place, and his injured back gain some relief, injured from the abuses of his job. Yet Yusuke didn't regret it. The Hinamatsu case had taken a lot out of him, but at least that poor dead boy could rest in peace now. Thinking of the victim, Yusuke glanced at a photo he had just now, finally, put on his desk. Mai Taniyama.

Mai Taniyama was a mystery to most in the department. She was brilliant, gorgeous and very young for it as well. Yusuke had quickly raced up the ranks himself and at 23 was now in a position that Mai had already occupied for a year. Remembering the jealousies and difficulties from his co-workers Yusuke could only imagine how difficult it had been for Mai as a female and at a much younger age. He ran a hand through his chocolate brown hair as he gazed at her picture.

Mai was amazing.

He was not talking about her job or her position, Mai was amazing due to her personality. He hadn't really noticed her at first. He'd seen her, known about her dizzying rise through the force and her case closure rate with 100% accuracy. But he'd disregarded this, seeing her as a possible future rival and nothing more. This changed when they had had their first case together.

The Urameshi case was one of the most difficult cases he'd worked yet. Hardly the place for a new, young detective. However when his older, more experienced partner had died due to a traffic accident it suddenly became his responsibility. Mai was tacked on halfway into the case but strangely had not insisted on taking over. He'd thought that like any other young detective she would be driven to take over the case to prove her position. However he found himself in charge of the case. That first week he'd constantly looked at her wondering if she was going to challenge his decisions and found the opposite and found the opposite. She looked as if she was day dreaming! Did she think this case was unimportant? Or was this some kind of holiday for her? She didn't respect him enough to listen, so she'd waste her time day dreaming like some kind of middle school student? (at that time he hadn't realised that most girls her age would only have just graduated university) He'd let it go on for longer than he would have otherwise, but at the end of the week he'd pulled her aside and told her that if she had something better to do she could go and get off his case or she could pay attention and work. Even through his increasingly infuriated lecture she'd appeared misty-eyed and dreamy. He was working steadily working up to breaking point. Then, half way through his diatribe she'd cut him off. "sorry sir but if we don't get to the cellar right now, something bad it going to happen". He'd almost blown up at her again, but she'd grabbed his hand and with a strength he'd not have expected she dragged him after her, no longer dreamy eyed but focused, alert and every inch the brilliant homicide detective her profile said that she was. She dragged him to the cellar and had easily broken down the door where they had found the bodies of the last five victims and the murderer about to kill the youngest Urameshi child. After a dramatic gun fight, the killer had snatched the child to him only to realise that he'd grabbed Mai, who had bodily shielded the victim from the rain of bullets. Upon being grabbed by the murderer Mai freed herself and forced the killer to the ground. After taking the man into custody he found that she had attributed the catch to him. He'd asked her angrily why. She'd answered that it was in her report.

When he'd requested the file he'd been met with surprised looks, but it had been worth it. He'd seen how she had, rather than day dreaming, been analysing the material that his team had collected and had particularly acknowledged his own conclusions as brilliant. She had put down his theory as why she'd realised that the killer was going to be in the basement at that particular time and how they had, "through the utilisation of excellent teamwork, under the leadership of detective Minamoto", broken the doorway and made the arrest. Minamoto couldn't believe how everyone seemed to accept this conclusion. He knew it had been luck and Taniyama's miraculous insight that had solved the case. Yet that case had started his reputation of a hard-ass, brilliant young investigator.

He'd lived up to the reputation too. Despite Taniyama's insight it HAD been the evidence that he had collected that had convicted the killer. But he couldn't get Mai out of his head. In that gun fight she had shown why she worked the dangerous cases division, bodily protecting the young Urameshi daughter. Despite her heroism, she had let him collar the criminal. He had not realised why until he had come across her there later, with a bouquet making a prayer for the souls of the victims. It was then that he realised. No matter who was in charge, Taniyama's first priority was human life and justice for the dead. Since that moment, he had never been able to look away from her and gradually fell in love with her. She hadn't noticed, while brilliant she seemed t have difficulty recognising male attentions. No matter, she had accepted his offer of a date. He had no intention of letting her accept anyone else's.

Ok, how does everyone like Yusuke? I thought this was more probable. After all Mai is very cute and very down to earth (psychic abilities not withstanding C:), so I think that she would at least try to move on (after all she's still very young) and Yusuke seems to be her type. So who's perspective should I write from next I wonder? Btw, some of you may have noticed some discrepancies in the general timeline. Not going to say too much about that now, but if you pay attention over the course of this fic you may realise that these early chapters are non-linear in regards to time line. More on this next chapter though. Also if you pay attention you should be able to work out relative age differences.


End file.
